Blackwell Unbound: the first week's winners

Hi, I'm Morgan, an editor at Manfesto Games. I've seen a few ghosts (my mom's dead aunt came for a visit and tried to pat my head. It was pretty weird.) so my colleagues thought I was the best judge for this contest. It was really pretty hard -- there were so many great stories that it was hard to pick just two. If you didn't make our winner's list this time, try again this coming week; the contest begins again at midnight tonight and ends next Wednesday after five PM -- I do need a couple of hours to read and re-read them all. Thanks for your stories, and have a Happy Halloween!

GRAND PRIZE WINNER -- WEEK #1
Story by Tom Kim
This happened when I was a senior in high school. I had just returned home from seeing a movie and I noticed that there was an unfamiliar car in the driveway. I parked my car next to it and walked in through the garage door. We lived in a single-story ranch house at the time, and all of the main rooms were arranged linearly. There was a small utility room between the garage and the kitchen where our washer dryer and water softener were kept, and where we removed our shoes before entering the house (I am Asian-American, and it is customary to take off one's shoes before walking inside.)

As I was kicking off my sneakers, I heard a very clear and distinct female voice say "hello." It was slightly inquisitive, and not at all threatening. The speaker sounded like a young woman with a Midwestern accent. The voice was unfamiliar -- it didn't belong to my mother or my sister. The lights were off in the utility room and the kitchen beyond, and I assumed that I had surprised one of my parent's guests who perhaps had gone into the kitchen.

Puzzled, but not frightened, I made my way through the kitchen and dining room which were both empty, and found my parents sitting in the living room across from another Korean couple. All of them asked if I had brought home a friend because all four of them clearly heard the voice, as well. When I told them that I had not, and that I had thought that the voice belonged to one of them, they all got very uncomfortable. No one else was home at the time -- my older brother was off to his first year of college, and my sister was out with her friends.

We all kind of shrugged it off. My parents are quite religious -- conservative Protestants. And culturally, Koreans are quite superstitious to begin with. So I think the entire situation left all of them very unsettled. Rather than discuss it, everyone chose to ignore it. Although I didn't share their religious views or superstitions, the odd occurrence left me a little spooked. I wasn't a hostile skeptic, but if someone told me they were hearing voices, my first instinct at the time would've been to wonder if the person wasn't suffering from schizophrenia. Ironically, I would've been more concerned for my own psychological well-being if it weren't for the fact that all five of us clearly heard the voice.

I went to bed and tried not to make anything of it.

But the following morning was when things got positively strange. I had slept in, and got up around 10:30am. My mother was out running errands and my father was out mowing the lawn. My sister was still asleep in her room. I walked toward the kitchen to find myself something for breakfast. When I got to the living room, I found something quite strange. We had six or seven large pine cones on the fireplace mantle for decoration. These were on the floor arranged in a triangle pointed toward the fireplace.

My parents and I had not told my sister about the voice, and it was extremely out of character for parents to play a prank on me, especially about an incident like this. When I went to pick up the pine cones, something else quite odd happened. They felt like they were literally stuck to the floor. The floor had a low shag carpet, and the carpet filaments were entwined around the bottom of the pine cones. I had to break them to get them up, and use a vacuum to get the bits out of the carpeting.

Nothing else happened the rest of the year before I left for college, but I didn't talk about either of these incidents with my siblings until a few years later. On talking to them, they told me they had several odd experiences of their own. Nothing overtly threatening or scary, but just odd. Like seeing unexplained floating lights in dark rooms. But nothing like the voice or the pine cones.

The property wasn't that old -- I think it was built in the 40's or 50's. The only odd thing I can think of is that the house had been vacant, and on the market for three years before my parents bought it. It was located on several acres of woods in some pretty high property tax real estate. Compared to our neighbors, our house was pretty modest. Still, my understanding was that my parents were able to pick up the home for quite a discount. I think I know why.

That's my ghost story. Not that scary, but to this day, the experiences defy easy explanation.

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SECOND PRIZE WINNER -- WEEK #1
Story by M. Idrous Ishaaq

Steve, Eddie and Bob had formed a triangle and were chatting away about the latest horror movies; comparing them and criticizing without mercy; as I pass by Bob suddenly waves his arms around, eyes rolled back, making moaning sounds. Everyone in class laughed, I glared at him and told him to shut it.

Bob spoke in a mocking voice „Ooh! What‚re you going to do? Summon the spirits?!‰

Then he started to shake "I see a light! I see a light!." Soon afterwards he was unconscious, lying on the infirmary bed and I was sent to the principle‚s office.

I was made fun of occasionally and usually I‚d keep it in, but today I was just fed up with it.

***

Let me introduce myself, my name is Idris and I have a thing with spirits. Now, I don‚t mean to go all ŒSixth Sense‚ on you, nor am I saying that I‚ve got the kinks, it‚s just they bother me in my dreams.

My family, or rather the children in my family always had some sort of Œgift‚; it tends to be different for each of us.

Spirits haunt me when I sleep; they sometimes get into my dreams and create this nightmare universe where I become them and re-live a few of their darkest memories; their regrets, conflicts, anything that was bad, often it‚s of the day they died. I would wake up sweating and there‚d be something of their possession in my hand; don‚t ask me, I don‚t know how that‚s possible, but it‚s always there.

My brother Mort has OOBE (out of body experience), it means he can detach his spirit from his physical body, leaving it unconscious. You may think that‚s not much, but it gets annoying when he swoops in and out of our rooms, especially when we don‚t want to be disturbed; then again, it‚d always end up as a race to who can reach his body in time and beat the hell out if it. I notice that every time he does it, his appearance seem to age; maybe it's shortening his life span? ...hooray!

Betty, my sister, has it worse of all; she‚s the one with the eye and the flesh. If you don‚t get what I mean, let me elaborate. Betty has the ability to see ghosts in solid form; she can touch them physically and vice versa. She tells me that it gets confusing sometimes,"You won‚t know who‚s dead or alive."
They talk to her, yes, and she talks back. As a result people think she's schizophrenic. Betty gets bullied a lot obviously; in fact, I think everyone in the family has had their fair share of bullying. Why did I say she had it worse? A lot of the spirits, for some unknown reason, blame my sister for their deaths and they harm her, try to have revenge; maybe they‚re just confused angry spirits, maybe Betty had a previous life, who knows? Because of the bruises and scratches, our parents were arrested (teachers thinking that they had abused us), we were put into the Seven Bells‚ orphanage; it also functions as a boarding school. That's where we‚ve been for the past half year.

There you have it The Isaac children‚all three of us, are considered outcasts by the inhabitants of Seven Bells because of our gift and because of it, we are often ridiculed.

***

Detention isn't so bad, if you‚re lucky the person sitting in for you doesn‚t care what you do, you get to do whatever you want. It's liberating.

I look around the room and as expected, I see Mort and Betty at the back of the class; we have eye contact and a second later we continue with our business. We don‚t talk to each other much, but a peek says enough.

You see, Mort is agonizing on the fact that he didn‚t do anything wrong (or at least he claims not to have). The girls always pick on him, they dub him a peeking Tom, saying he uses his freak powers to go through the girls changing rooms and go invisible so no one can see; but my brother can only go translucent, so it can‚t be true.

My sister looks busy at the moment, probably trying to shut the bickering voices next to her (of course I‚m just guessing here, I can‚t hear or see them).

An hour had past and, getting desperate, I count the number of dents in the walls. I look around again, Mort has his head face down on the tabletop (OOBE I reckon, this time he probably is going to have a peek at the girls).

Betty is missing, I hadn‚t noticed that she left, she probably ran to the toilet, hoping the flush would drain the voices away. I hope she‚s alright.

I look at the clock, its half past five, just a few hours more (detention here lasts till seven in the afternoon). I'm tired and drowsy, but I pinch myself whenever I close my eyes, I haven't blinked since lunch. In the end, I gave in and my head fell with a loud thud; I'm knocked out instantly.

***

I'm running now, but from what? I look around, this place looks familiar, since it's a dream, it looks blurry and slightly distorted. I reach out to a nearby door and enter, panicked as hell. I can make out my voice (well, someone else's voice really).
"! Stop it, please! I didn‚t do anything!"
I can hear more voices, they're coming closer and closer, until . . . .

***

I screamed my lungs out, sweating badly and out of breath. Everyone was staring at me. It happened again, I became a fragment of one of the dead; but this time was a little different, this time it felt familiar.

There was a loud clunk sound, I dropped something. I looked at my feet and there I saw a pencil case and on it was written Betty.